First Meetings
by jam2599
Summary: They'd never really been introduced, but...Sai had always been close to Team Seven. Takes place before NARUTO II. A series of short stories.
1. Osmosis:Naruto

**First Meetings**

Pairing: you decide

Premise: He'd never met them before the village had assigned him to their team, but…Sai was always around Team Seven.

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**Ch. 1**

**OSMOSIS**

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Uzumaki Naruto was not mentally retarded. He really wasn't even stupid…after all, not every child who applied to the Konoha Ninja Academy was allowed in, and among those who were accepted there were a few dropouts.

Most children as ungifted as Naruto were not allowed into the school, but the Academy had made an exception for him. The young boy had no family to miss him or to sue the school, after all.

By his second year, he was used to taunting of "dead last" and "idiot", as well as "usuratonkachi" from a dark-haired boy whose name he did not know. Naruto was often jeered at during class, and even instructor Umino Iruka, who had seen it his responsibility to look after Naruto, was hard on him inside and outside of class. He had accepted his idiocy by then, and had sadly become content with last place.

It didn't help that none of the other students wanted to study with him. A few had almost let him become their friend, or asked him to their houses to study together, bad students like him. Each time that he came close to another student, though, he met their parents and he was chased away for a reason he didn't know.

And so, Naruto had gradually come to understand that he was an unwanted person and a bad student.

His home life was sad, a mixture of video games, ramen, and tired study hours spent looking out the window, being overtaken by a sense of sadness, realizing once again that he was worthless, and concentration. For some reason, studying required far more concentration on his part than on his peers', and he chalked it up to the fact that he was stupid. Little did he know that Haruno Sakura studied almost as long as he did, but when she fell off-task her friend Yamanaka Ino 'corrected' her through teasing.

Some nights, Naruto would go to bed with a book and read until he fell asleep. He did not realize that he would not learn anything that way, by tiring out his mind with words and not absorbing them at all, but he simply did not know any better.

He fell asleep in class one day. Iruka had continued to lecture for a while, but when he'd walked by Naruto's desk the instructor had rapped the table quickly, and Naruto's head shot up as he suddenly became alert.

"What--?" the blonde boy had asked, looking around the room until he guiltily raised his head to meet Iruka's eyes.

A vein throbbed in the instructor's temple as he calmly said, "Naruto, I understand that you're having a SIGNIFICANT amount of trouble with the coursework but it would be rather foolish for such a poor student to attempt to learn through osmosis."

"Os-what?" Naruto asked.

Two rows ahead of him, a girl answered, "Osmosis. It means that you're trying to absorb information from the book by putting your head next to it instead of reading it, like how water can be absorbed through a membrane."

Naruto blinked and a few students snickered at him as his face turned red. Turning to face his instructor, he stuttered, "I wasn't—that's stupid—I wouldn't--"

Iruka just laughed and patted him on the head in a fatherly way. "Just pay attention to the lecture, Naruto," he said.

Ashamed and struggling with the new word, Naruto went home that night and carefully read the chapter. It had all stopped making sense for some reason, and because Naruto didn't know the difference between a bad decision and a good one, before he fell asleep that night he opened his book to the chapter, laid it over his head, and turned out the light.

Nothing happened, and he fell asleep.

He still didn't know anything in class the next morning, but he'd gotten rest and he found that it was easier to pay attention. Naruto considered this with a sense of false hope and did it again that night, and the next night, and one day he found that he remembered information in class that he could have SWORN he hadn't read. He'd even answered a question in class correctly, receiving a look of surprise from Iruka that was followed by a short pause in the lecture as the dark-skinned Chuunin flipped through his notes to MAKE SURE that Naruto had answered the question correctly.

He studied in high spirits that night. The exam was the next day and if he didn't finish his studying in five hours, he wouldn't be able to go to bed early, and if he didn't go to bed early then he wouldn't have enough time to learn in his sleep. Naruto had decided that he learned the best that way, but he'd study while he was awake too just to have his bases covered.

And so he went to sleep with the sun that night, waiting for his mind to absorb the chapter he needed to understand by the next morning. He already knew, somehow, that he would do well on the test.

What little Naruto didn't know was that one of ROOT ninja passed by his bedroom window every night as he returned from his missions. The rat-masked boy had taken notice of the student's recent sleeping habits and had taken it upon himself to study the situation.

The rat-masked ROOT entered Naruto's bedroom silently that night and pulled the book off his face. His older brother had once joked about learning in such a way, and he had not understood it at that time, as he did not understand many comparable expressions, but the blonde boy was a living illustration of it.

He did not know why he enjoyed these nightly visits so much. If he had been able to look inside himself, he would have realized that since his brother had been sent away on a mission to another country he'd missed him, and that the idiot sleeping with the book over his face resembled his brother just enough to make the emptiness go away.

And so, he sat down in Naruto's room that night as he always did and began to read the chapter aloud to the sleeping boy.

Naruto actually enjoyed the next morning's exam, and he finished a few minutes before time was called. As he checked his answers, though, an unsettling feeling arose in his stomach. He'd realized that when the answers came to him, it was not in his voice that he heard them, but in someone else's.

He shuddered, and because he thought it was due to the cold temperature in the room he turned in his exam, sprinted out of the building, and flopped down on the nearest hill so that he could lie under the sun.

Naruto decided to keep sleeping with his book over his face. Maybe, just maybe, one actually could learn by osmosis.

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	2. Black Bark:Sakura

**First Meetings**

Pairing: you decide

Premise: He'd never met them before the village had assigned him to their team, but…Sai was always around Team Seven.

A heads-up: this one is longer than OSMOSIS, mainly because the first part is a review of episode 135 that I included because most of us watched that episode a long time ago. I wrote into the section of the episode (meaning that I didn't just write down the script and movement).

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**Ch. 2**

**BLACK BARK**

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A promise was a promise, but Sakura couldn't hold it against Naruto.

He'd even apologized to her for it so…why was she so angry?

She had come to the hospital with Ino as soon as they'd heard that the boys from their teams had returned. Relief had flooded into her chest—Naruto and Sasuke were back.

"I'm going to go see Chouji first," Ino told her when they came to the receptionist's desk. "How about you?"

Sakura almost considered going with Ino, but she was too excited. She couldn't wait even a few minutes—her feet were on the first floor of the hospital but her heart was already in her teammates' hospital room.

"I'm going to see Naruto and Sasuke first," she replied.

The blonde girl nodded and smiled, a little jealous that Sakura was much closer to Sasuke than she was, but her childish crush on Sasuke was meaningless while Chouji and Shikamaru were hurt. "I'll call you later," she said.

Ino knew that Sakura would want to spend time with the boys…anyone would have known that.

Sakura smiled and agreed before the two girls parted ways.

As she neared Naruto's hospital room, she wondered what she would find when she saw them for the first time after Sasuke's…_no, it wasn't a betrayal, it was a lapse in_ judgment, she told herself. Her neck still bore a bruise but her collar covered it.

She returned to her musings. Would they be talking? Injured? Would Sasuke be chained to his? Would he be sedated?

Would he be…regretful?

Her footsteps slowed as she became nervous. Sasuke had hurt her and had left the village in search of power. Her confession had not changed his mind, not in the least.

Still, though…still, he was her teammate and she had grown to love him. Sasuke was important to her and even if he still thought she was annoying, or if he didn't want to talk to her…even if she'd feel embarrassed because she'd told him she loved him…

Her hand stilled on the door as she heard a voice speak from Naruto's room.

"And what about Sasuke?"

It was Shikamaru.

Sakura stopped breathing for a moment as she waited for the response. She didn't know why she was eavesdropping in the hall instead of asking him.

_You don't deserve to be a part of that conversation, _she told herself. Sakura thought about that. Was it…true?

"Yeah…he got away," was Naruto's soft reply.

Her green eyes shot open and she stared at the closed door.

Sasuke had…Naruto had let him…they'd failed…Naruto had broken his promise?

Her hand fell from the door and Sakura stared into space, wondering whose nightmare she had fallen into.

_No,_ she thought. _Naruto never breaks his promises…that's who he is…he always wins when the odds are against him. He…the rules don't apply to him…how could he have…_

"Come to pay a visit?"

Sakura turned to see Tsunade standing down the hall a short way. Startled, she gasped and hoped that she hadn't started to cry. Tsunade overlooked her current mood and said, "Information spreads quickly."

The pink-haired girl stared dumbly, not sure of how much Tsunade knew that she didn't, and the blonde woman reached across her to open the door.

And then, Sakura saw him in his bed, covered in bandages. Naruto stared at her in silence and Shikamaru looked away from her, expecting the pink-haired girl to react badly to the loss of her other teammate.

Naruto looked weaker than usual. Tired. Sad. Sakura took in his current condition and she knew, as she had always known, as she had said before but come to not believe that Naruto WAS human and he COULD lose. He was just a twelve-year-old ninja in training, not a turner of fate.

She swallowed nervously and said, "Naruto…"

A sadness beyond sadness overtook his face, and Sakura stared in shock as her usually-loud teammate fought back tears. He looked away from her, but before either of them could say anything to each other, anything real, Tsunade spoke, trying to push a dam over Sakura's emotions.

"I heard that you were severely wounded, but you look fine," the blonde woman said to Naruto. The blonde boy was obviously not FINE, and Sakura's chest hurt because of it, but Tsunade's insensitivity covered up a little of the foul mood of the hospital room.

Shikamaru had no reply, and before Sakura could try to speak to Naruto the blonde boy quickly said, "I'm sorry, Sakura."

Inner Sakura had no reply for this.

Sakura could only stare at him for a moment before the kind words forced themselves from her mouth. "Why are you apologizing?" she asked him. Naruto did not reply, did not even look at her, but the pain on his face was a hundred times more honest than her question.

She felt pain well up inside her chest, so she walked over to the window and, to cover up what she really wanted to say, she told Naruto, "You probably overdid it, right? Geez, you look like a mummy."

Her voice was light, and his was dark. "I'm sorry, I…"

Sakura couldn't take it. The nightmare had advanced; Naruto had lost, Naruto had failed, Naruto had apologized, and Naruto was about to cry.

She just couldn't take it, so she rejected it.

"Hey, since the weather is nice, let's open up the curtains," she said in a plastic voice. She opened the curtains with shaking hands and leaned out the window just a little, hiding her face from Naruto. she needed to compose herself.

Taken aback by her behavior, Shikamaru stared at her as he waited for the breakdown. Sakura was not strong, and they all knew it.

Naruto broke the silence first, though, because he was unable to lie like that, to provide cover. He didn't know what was wrong with Sakura, why she was acting like she wasn't a part of the reality they'd come to.

"Sakura! I will definitely keep my promise! Because, I told you, it's the promise of a lifetime! I…!" he cried.

He wanted to break through that face because he knew that the real Sakura was lying underneath. He knew that she was in pain because, despite his own feelings for her, he knew that she loved Sasuke.

"It's alright," she replied finally. The first real answer.

Shikamaru turned to her sourly and said, "Sakura, you know he--"

"I always said to you that I will not go back on my word!" Naruto blurted over Shikamaru. He smiled because that was the best thing for him to say, the only good thing he could say to her at that point in time.

_Stupid Naruto…_she thought. _Stupid…does he really think that's what's wrong? That he broke his promise? Why did I put my trust in him…all of my trust…I should have been there to get him myself…_

"Because that's my way of the ninja!" Naruto added as his smile broadened.

Everything hit her like a blow to the chest. Naruto's brightness, his promise, his love that wouldn't die, was her pain. He couldn't just cover his own pain and act like nothing had happened…the defiled forehead protector he held in his hand was proof of that. He had been there, and he had been the last person to see or touch Sasuke. Maybe he had seen him walk away, but even if he hadn't he had been the last person from the village to KNOW Sasuke, and Sakura had been cut off from that because she was, as she had known since she'd joined Team Seven, a weak ninja.

She had not followed the group of boys because she had not had the strength to fight for Sasuke.

Naruto laughed giddily in excitement. He was injured and bedridden, but he was still chasing after Sasuke. Naruto was startling in his own way.

_So…he hasn't lost yet?_ She thought.

And, because of that willpower that had brought him so much pain, Sakura smiled. If he was willing to go so far, to not lose, even if he had to change the rules…

"Naruto," she said softly. "Thank you, but next time…I'll come with you."

His smile did not break, and Sakura wasn't sure if he'd taken her promise seriously, but as she clutched the window frame so hard that it drove splinters into her hand she thought, _When I'm strong enough._

She left the hospital after a quick good-bye, and did not wait for Ino. She had found it, the reason to change, the reason to become strong.

Sasuke's attention hadn't been enough. Even when she'd been close to him, when she'd wanted to impress him, she hadn't trained and worked her hardest.

She knew that she really was not a ninja.

She knew that she was a little girl suffering from a painful crush.

And Sakura hated it.

Her body was weak, and at that time her mind was weak as well. She did not want to go home, not with painful feelings swirling around in her chest, so she walked to the training grounds instead.

She had no plan. She did not want to fight at that time…she wanted to hurt.

It would have been unfair to talk to Naruto about her feelings, and she never spoke on truly intimate terms with Ino. Her parents knew nothing about her job duties or her life and she wanted to keep it that way. She was twelve years old but a ninja was a ninja, a self-reliant independent.

Sakura would have to take care of her weakness by herself.

She tripped on a large tree root when she reached the forested part of the southern training grounds, and when her knees and hands hit the ground she did not stand up. There was no one around so she finally broke into sobs. She needed to scream, and she needed to feel something besides hopelessness.

"Sasuke…" she sobbed. "Why…what's wrong with you…"

Love wasn't enough for him. Love was all that she'd worked for.

_No wonder you're such a weak ninja, _she told herself. _Love led you to nothing. Now, you're tied to a profession you don't really care about and bonded to a boy and a man you never even wanted to meet._

_Sasuke is following his deepest desire. What's yours?_

She'd told Kakashi only a few months before that she wanted a special someone, and Sakura realized then how foolish she'd been.

How much time had she wasted on Sasuke?

_I love him…I love him so much it hurts…but I didn't chase him. I didn't fight for him. I might as well have let him go._

"Are you doing something?" Sasuke asked her.

Sakura looked up in shock. Sasuke? Where had she heard his voice from?

Instead of her teammate, though, it was a rat-masked ANBU she saw when she looked up. She stared at him, and realized that he could have only been a year or two older than she was, judging by his height.

_He must be strong, to have become an ANBU at such an age._

"You must have some sort of mental problem, if you decided to come out to a dangerous training ground just to cry," the boy said coldly. "I don't even know how a little civilian girl could have come out here."

Sakura glared at him and wiped the tears from her face as she stood. "I'm not a civilian," she answered roughly. "I have as much right to be here as you do."

"You're a ninja?" he asked with a cruel laugh. "No, I'm certain now that you must be insane. No ninja would cry on the training grounds. No ninja should feel sadness or remorse for their duties."

"Don't talk to me about appropriate behavior," she spat at him. She couldn't hold anything back. This was why she'd looked for a place to be alone. The dam had broken, completely and utterly, and even as she stared down the rat-masked ninja tears spilled from her eyes.

"Oh…I think I recognize you," he said softly. "You're that talent-less female ninja from the traitor's team. Was Uchiha Sasuke his name?"

"How do you know about him?" she asked in shock.

The ANBU was silent for a moment. He had heard about the traitor, as had every other ninja of Chuunin rank of higher, a few hours before. It wasn't often that a ninja of any value at all betrayed the village, and considering the identity of the traitor, his purpose for betrayal, and the man with whom his allegiance now lay, Uchiha Sasuke had found a place in a soon-to-be-printed bingo book. He'd heard a little about the traitor's teammates as well. It seemed as though one was the village's demon beast vessel (information that was as taboo as it was valuable to high-ranking ninja) and that the other was a female ninja with no skill, drive, or talent.

The nameless boy had found her, or so it seemed. He reasoned that the normal emotional response for losing a teammate could have been sadness, perhaps followed by the physical manifestation of tears, though when his brother had been put into the ground he had experienced neither. Perhaps the girl really was mentally unstable.

"It's unprotected information," was his cold answer. His dead brother came to mind and he asked, "How does it feel to lose a teammate?" in his usual voice.

The nameless boy's question made the last barrier within Sakura's mind crack. The boy was rude, and spoke of Sasuke's betrayal so off-handedly that it made her blood boil.

"You…are you serious?" she asked him quietly.

Sakura didn't even know. She hadn't been there, after all, but she hurt all the same.

"If you're not going to answer, just say so," the nameless boy replied. "But I suppose that it will be easier for you to quit now."

"Q-quit?" Sakura asked. "What do you--"

"A weak ninja like you must be longing for a civilian's life. Now that one member has fallen out of your team, you'll be free to complete the dissolution of your team because now, you won't be to blame for it. You must be so lucky, for his betrayal to help you in the end."

Sakura was too emotional, and when she lunged for ward to strike the nameless boy's masked face he caught her wrist instead, having foreseen the attack as clearly as if she had announced it aloud. He twisted her wrist behind her back and she fell to one knee in pain as she cried out.

"See?" he asked her, twisting her wrist a little harder. "You don't have to lie anymore. You don't have to fight anymore. You…are so lucky."

Tears burst out of her eyes as she struggled, but to no avail. She was weak, and she had always known it. She'd reasoned that it was alright for a girl to be weak, as long as she was smart, but at that moment Sakura's beautiful brain could not provide her with any course of action that would make the pain in her arm end or prove the nameless boy wrong.

She realized then how stupid she was…she'd let the others go without her. She wanted Sasuke, so why hadn't she fought too?

She wanted him!

"I'm not lucky, you bastard," she seethed. "I want to be a ninja. I want it even more now."

"Why? So you can have half a chance to retaliate?" he asked coolly. Her opponent hadn't even broken a sweat while Sakura strained beneath him, her mind clouded by pain and sadness.

"I swear to God…" She paused as she gasped for air. The pain in her arm continued to grow worse, and she bit her lip before forcing through her dry lips, "I swear to God that I'm going to become stronger, get Sasuke back…and once I've done that…."

When Sakura fell silent, the nameless boy realized that the pain may have inhibited her speech. He did not NEED to hear the rest of her sentence but he was curious. His grip on her wrist weakened just a little, and Sakura took the chance to pull her wrist out of his hand, balance her upper body on the ground as she kicked him backwards against a nearby tree, and then spun around to punch him by placing all of her strength into one blow of the hand.

When her fist reached the tree, he had already disappeared.

Sakura stared at her bleeding hand as she held her closed fist against the tree. She'd broken at least two fingers, and the front of her hand was covered in splinters, but she'd dented the tree. A small valley of black bark cuddled close to her hand, and she closed her eyes, imagining a broken rat mask in its place.

"…once I've done that, I'll find you and break every bone in your face."

Sakura left quietly and decided to return to the infirmary to have her hand looked at. On the way there, she decided that she would need help in accomplishing her goal.

_I wonder if Tsunade is taking students._

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